Posted tagged ‘the grief in beauty poem’

Then there’s that part of the brain that speaks in Chopin,
at least my brain, that, at least, listensin Chopin, whose light-piercing tones–
notes that lift the heart, that dance the bones–
reverberate in loss, incipient,
past, lasting. The brain, made pliant
by the beauty of the song–
the brain that sways its hands along,
bends at its waist, rises on lobes’ toes–
finds itself unlocked by those
toqued keys, slides from arms’ bed
into the flowered mound at coffined head
of a friend, lost– And how can I be here
and she be gone? And how can fair be fair?

Except that all will join her soon enough,
or him–that’s you and me and them–no matter how tough
our resistance, how unalloyed
our letting go. This moment’s would-be joy
can’t swallow the leaded rune,
and the brain’s stretched hands that just had traced the tune
in air, affecting grace, now cover the brain’s face–
or cover anyway that space
inside the brain–that part that hears
a minor croon in every music of the spheres,
that part that weeps
in what sweeps
it along, as if grief were its duty
to beauty, pleasure, life waylaid–
the price that must be paid.

*******************************************Here’s a drafty poem–I call it that because just written–for my own prompt on With Real Toads about Dr. Oliver Sacks. (Funny pic is mine; bust of Chopin–my husband’s.)

I attach below a video (really audio) of Dinu Lipatti playing a Chopin Nocturne. Lipatti, one of the most wonderful Chopin pianists, died, like Chopin, at a very young age (in his thirties.)